The stone wall beside the throne was riddled with many small holes. It looked like a wasp’s nest, or a lotus pod. Like the Trypophile’s mask. That must be where the Prisoner whispered and birthed its worms. “So,” I said. “This is the holiest of holies.”

  “Please do not blaspheme here, Zax,” the Pilgrim said.

  I could hardly stand to look at him. “You betrayed us, Pilgrim. I can’t believe it.”

  The Pilgrim shook his head gravely. “I betrayed no one. I have always been in the service of God. I am indebted to you for helping me find my deity. I truly hope we can reach a peaceful resolution, with no further harm.”

  I wanted to tell him the Prisoner meant everyone harm, but the priest spoke before I could.

  “Here are my terms,” the Trypophile said. “Minna will surrender herself to our custody. She will make serum for us, and provide my people with all her other little powers, too. We will take your shuttle, and the cultist Ana kidnapped. We will also need this breach-bomb, so we can dispose of it safely.”

  “Oh, is that all?” I said.

  If she was annoyed, I couldn’t tell through the mask. “In exchange, you can have Sorlyn back now. Once Minna has trained our people to make the serum, you can have her back, too. After that, I suggest you travel as far into the multiverse as you can. We will let you live your lives in peace. You could have many years of happiness before our great work intrudes.” She leaned forward in the throne. “I would not have offered you such generous terms, but the Prisoner is merciful.”

  “You think we’ll agree to help you infect millions of people and destroy all of reality, killing untold trillions?” I shook my head. “We want Sorlyn back, but no one could make that trade.”

  But Zax, a voice whispered from the rocks. This time, the Prisoner didn’t sound like Ana. It sounded like a voice made of wriggling worms and cascading rocks. You are clever. You are brave. And our plan, why, it has so many steps before it reaches completion. There are so many ways it could fall apart. If you save Sorlyn now, perhaps you can stop us later. You’ll take that chance, won’t you? To save him?

  The idea had occurred to me. Live to fight another day, and all that. “I–”

  Minna shimmered into view beside me. I hadn’t even realized she was there. “This is not Zax’s decision,” she said. “You want me, and the things I know how to do. I care about Sorlyn, really very much. If you let Zax take him away, you can keep me.”

  The Trypophile cocked her head. “Really? So easily?”

  Minna shrugged. “I helped the Lector when I had no choice. I have no choice now. I am a practical creature.”

  “The Pilgrim can see through your little disappearing trick,” the Tryphophile said.

  The Pilgrim pointed to his eye. “Augmented vision.”

  “Don’t think you can sleep your way out, either,” the priest said. “We’re going to take you to the second world in the shuttle, with the cultist Ana stole as the engine, and I’ll watch you transition back here by sleeping. Then we’ll follow you through, pick you up, and fly back here to the temple.” She pointed at Minna with her stick. “There will be no escape.”

  Minna shrugged. “That is fine. I accept.”

  The Trypophile rose. “Pilgrim, stay here, and watch Sorlyn. If Minna’s friends try anything, kill them all.”

  “It will be done,” he rumbled.

  “Minna, no–” I said.

  Silence, the Prisoner said. She has made her choice. Make the exchange.

  Minna took Vicki off her finger and handed it to me. Then she and the Tryphophile left the cave. I didn’t. I put Vicki on my ring finger and then sat down, cross-legged, and looked at Sorlyn. “Is he all right? Did you bash him on the head?”

  “He is sedated,” the Pilgrim said. “Zax, please understand, I have spent my entire life seeking, and now, I am found.”

  Blessed are those who serve the cause of freedom, the Prisoner whispered.

  I couldn’t bear that voice anymore. I went outside, and found Ana standing by Minna’s chariot. The shuttle was gone. “She’s really sacrificing herself?” Ana said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “If she has a plan, she didn’t tell me. Where’s Zaveta?”

  “Surveying the terrain, she said. I told her there was no point in trying a rescue, since the Prisoner can see everything we do, but…” she shrugged, “…it gives her something to do. She was… not happy about Minna’s decision.”

  “I’m sure she wasn’t. I’m not, either.” We sat and waited. Vicki was uncharacteristically silent.

  After a time, the shuttle came skimming across the landscape, settling down in the same spot where it had been parked before. Minna emerged, and the Trypophile came after her. “Come along, my little acolyte.” She poked Minna with her walking stick. “You too, Zaxony. We’ll make the exchange.”

  Ana and I followed them into the cave.

  “Go ahead,” the Trypophile said. “I am a woman of my word.” The Pilgrim hauled Sorlyn to his feet. He was groggy from the drugs, but came awake with the motion. He blinked at us. “Minna?” he said. “Darling, what–” The Pilgrim marched Sorlyn forward and thrust him toward Ana. She helped support his weight.

  “Minna,” I said. “We can find another way, you can’t–”

  She kissed my cheek. “We help people, Zax. Sorlyn needs help.” Then she kissed Sorlyn, on the lips, and joined the Pilgrim and the Trypophile by the throne.

  “Go ahead and take Sorlyn out,” the Trypophile said. “So you know we’re in earnest. Then you can come back and we’ll work out the other details, about the bomb and so forth.”

  “If you need motivation to hold to the terms of our agreement,” the Pilgrim said, “know that we can hurt Minna without reducing her usefulness–”

  I held up a hand. “Stop, Pilgrim. Stop.”

  He looked away. “I am sorry. This is… it’s important. God needs me.”

  “What’s happening?” Sorlyn mumbled.

  “Bad things,” I said.

  We returned to the shuttle, where Zaveta was waiting, cleaning her nails with a knife. “Minna has great healing abilities,” Zaveta said. “Perhaps…” Then she glanced at the sky and scowled. “It is hard to plan under the enemy general’s eye.”

  “Hmm,” Vicki said. “That is true. But, ah… it is always wise to take cover, and it never hurts to prepare for the possibility of violence.”

  Did Vicki know something we didn’t? Had they cooked up some scheme with Minna? If so, they couldn’t tell us, not in the presence of the Prisoner. We followed their suggestion, though, and moved to put the shuttle between us and the cavern. The other cultist was still sedated into unconsciousness in the back. The Trypophile hadn’t bothered to wake him up. We stood there silently for a while. Finally I said, “Is something going to happen, or–”

  We heard the Tryphophile scream, a sound of rage rather than pain, and the Pilgrim roared.

  “She’s done it, then,” Vicki said quietly.

  Ana and I peeked around the edge of the shuttle, and saw the Pilgrim and the Trypophile emerge from the cave mouth. “Madness!” the Trypophile shouted as they stalked toward us. “Did you know she was going to do that?”

  We exchanged quizzical glances. “Do what?” Ana called.

  “The fool flung herself into the lava!” the Tryphophile bellowed.

  Minna was dead? She’d sacrificed herself to save Sorlyn, and the multiverse? That was the secret plan? I staggered against the side of the shuttle, barely able to keep my knees from giving way beneath me.

  “Please, Zax, do not lose heart,” Vicki said. “We must keep our wits about us.” I stared at the gem on my finger, suddenly hating them. Vicki was a cool crystal intellect, but didn’t they care at all? It was Minna.

  We did have more immediate problems, though.

  “Kill them!” the Trypophile shrieked. “Slay them for their treachery!”

  The Pilgrim raised his long gun, and Ana and I ducked out of sight.

  “Did you know,” Vicki said, conversationally, “that the Pilgrim’s extraordinary deftness with that rifle is due to a neural implant? He is mentally connected to the gun’s controls, synching its aim with his own eyes. He even fires the weapon by thought alone – and there’s no manual trigger, to prevent others from using the weapon against him, I assume. But, of course, a system like that depends on wireless communication, and that can be… interfered with. There. The Pilgrim can’t shoot us now. Of course, he still has a sword, and the reflexes of a predator…”

  I stepped out of cover and held up my hands. “Pilgrim, this is over. Minna… she died to end this. No one else has to. We–”

  My old friend pointed the rifle right at me. Nothing happened, and he looked down at the gun, shook it, and pointed at me again, still to no avail.

  I stared at him. “You tried to shoot me?”

  The Pilgrim growled. “We made a covenant, and it was broken.”

  “Technically, Minna just said she’d hand herself over, not that she’d remain alive in your custody,” Vicki said. How could they talk about her death so calmly?

  “Kill them!” the Tryphophile said. “Use your teeth if you must! The Prisoner demands it!”

  “God asks difficult things of us, sometimes.” The Pilgrim threw the rifle onto the ground and drew the curved sword from his belt. “This will do to end you all.”

  A hand fell onto my shoulder, and Zaveta stepped up beside me. “All?” she said. “Even me?”

  The Pilgrim gazed at her. “Zax’s new companion. Shall I begin with you, then?”

  “I am Zaveta of the Broken Wheel,” she said. “And I am pleased to match my skills against another warrior – even a traitor like you.” She added, from the corner of her mouth: “Permission to engage, Zax?”

  “Granted,” I said, and she launched herself at the Pilgrim, cudgel swinging at his head. He blocked with his sword, but staggered back, clearly unprepared for the ferocity of her attack.

  The Trypophile darted toward Zaveta’s back, raising her staff, but then Ana shimmered into view behind her and snaked an arm around her throat. “Ah, ah, no cheating. Drop the stick or I’ll crush your windpipe.”

  The Trypophile complied. Ana pulled the priest’s hood down, yanked at the bindings on the back of her mask, and threw the grotesque thing into the dirt. Underneath it all, the Trypophile was younger than I’d expected, and looked like she could be Ephedra’s mother. She hissed in outrage, and Ana squeezed her neck until her eyes rolled back and she sagged to the ground.

  Then we turned to watch Zaveta and the Pilgrim dance.

  “Should I try to shoot the Pilgrim with a tranquilizer, or something?” Ana said.

  I shook my head. “This is Zaveta’s specialty. We should let her do it.”

  The Pilgrim was larger than Zaveta, with a longer reach, and he was certainly formidable… but he came from a world of technology, and he was a better sniper than a melee combatant. This was basically the only kind of fight Zaveta of the Broken Wheel had ever had. She was in her element, laughing as she fought, finally able to operate at her full potential, metal-clad cudgel striking sparks against the Pilgrim’s sword. She blurred, feinted at his face, and then dropped and struck at his knee. He staggered, and she clubbed his wrist savagely, making him drop the sword. She kneed him in the face, kicked his sword out of the way without even looking at the blade, and stood over him. “In deference to Zax, who hates to see unnecessary death, I will give you the opportunity to yield, on your word as a warrior and a man of God. Else, only death awaits you, and I do not think your God waits for you in that void.”

  The Pilgrim looked at her for a long moment, and then whispered, “I yield. On my honor as a pilgrim and a man.”

  “Good enough,” Zaveta said. “But I’m going to smash one of your knees just to be safe.”

  We heard the Prisoner’s thin and distant howl of frustration and rage from inside the cave, mingled with the Pilgrim’s shout of pain.

  * * *

  “Come with us,” I said. “We’ll take you anywhere you want to go–”

  “Leave me here, with my God,” the Pilgrim said.

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “The bomb, it’s going to light the sky itself on fire, you’ll–”

  “I will burn,” he said placidly. “But I will burn in the presence of my lord.” He turned and limped back into the cavern, using the Trypophile’s staff as a crutch.

  I looked at Ana, who shrugged. “It’s his choice.”

  “I have no interest in burning,” the Trypophile said, rising to her knees. “Take me with you, please!” She clasped her hands. “Don’t leave me here to die, I beg you–”

  “You think we’d do that?” Ana said.

  “It’s what she would do to us,” Sorlyn said. “She can’t imagine anyone else is different from her.” He was still moving slowly, but his mind was working again. I felt bad for him. I knew he admired Minna, and her loss would hurt him, no matter how stoic he seemed.

  “You won’t leave me here?” the Trypophile said. “You’ll reunite me with my people on that garden world–”

  “We didn’t say that,” I said.

  Ana looked at me. “Zax. You mean you aren’t going to do the nicest possible thing?”

  With Minna gone, my desire to be nice was rapidly receding. A universe without her in it was a crueler, darker place by definition. “The cultists have a chance to make a new life, on a new world. If she’s there, filling their minds with poison, manipulating them…” I shook my head. “I’m not being cruel to the priest here. I’m being kind to her people.”

  “Don’t take me to the world with the beetles, please, or the terrariums, oh, god, no–”

  “We aren’t you,” I said. We stuck the Trypophile in the back of the shuttle so we wouldn’t have to knock her out or listen to her complaints. Sorlyn moved the other cultist into the back of the chariot. Vicki and Sorlyn set off together to deliver the captive cultist to Wormwood, while Ana and I took the priest and a load of supplies away to her final destination, with plans to reconvene back at the Sleeperhold when we were done.

  I’d never been the propulsion system for a shuttle before, but it wasn’t so strange. Ana put the diadem on my brow, kissed me sweetly, and then said, “Sleep for me.”

  After everything we’d lost in order to win, I welcomed the prospect of a brief oblivion.

  I dreamed I was back on the First World, on the shores of the steaming lake. The Prisoner was there, looking like the Lector, sounding like Ana. “Must we do this?” I said.

  “I just want you to know how pointless all this is.” It paced back and forth on the shore. “You’ll set off a bomb, seal me back into my tomb, collapse my worm-trails, close my peepholes – what does it matter? I’ll just keep hammering away. I am tireless, and I am eternal, and I will break through again. You’ve only delayed the inevitable.”

  I nodded. “Right. But didn’t it take you billions of years to make those breaches in the first place? The ones we’re going to seal? Maybe you’ve gotten better at breaking things – maybe you’ll take half as many billions of years this time.” I shrugged. “That’s OK. That gives a lot of people the chance to live full lives in worlds that aren’t collapsing on themselves. I’m not eternal, like you, Prisoner. From my point of view, billions of years is as good as permanent.”

  “I can hold you here for what feels like billions of years,” the Prisoner said. “I can make it an eternity of misery–”

  I’d spent a lot of time with Zaveta. She’d taught me a few things, lessons that fit nicely with lots of other meditative practices I’ve developed over the years. My mind fortress isn’t nearly as nice as Zaveta’s – it’s just a steel sphere, barely big enough to stand up in, so far – but it does have a window, and that window has a shutter. I called the fortress into existence, and pulled the shutter down, and the Prisoner’s voice became the distant whisper of the wind. I suppose it could have made me wait there for a subjective eternity, but the Prisoner enjoys more active torment, I think. Soon enough, the darkness returned.

  We took the Trypophile to a world the Sleepers had surveyed long ago, with an island sporting natural caves for shelter, mineral springs for water, ample fish and fruit, and even a beautiful lagoon. There were sea monsters, farther out – leviathans that rose and writhed and crested, and that maybe even had their own culture, who knows? – but they couldn’t come anywhere near the shallow waters of the island. They would discourage attempts at sailing, though.

  There were lots of tiny holes in the sand near the waterline, where tiny burrowing crabs lived. Seeing that was what made Ana think of this world as a final destination in the first place.

  When we shoved the Trypophile out of the shuttle, she collapsed to her knees on the sand, and howled. “What am I supposed to do in this place?”

  “Not commit multiversal genocide, for a start,” I said. We dumped a bunch of supplies beside her and left without exchanging another word.

  When we got to the Sleeperhold… Minna was waiting for us.

  “Surprise!” she said. “I did a tricky thing and I am sorry you were sad or scared, but the Prisoner could see you all the time, so it had to be a secret thing–”

  I gasped and flung myself at her, hugging her, then looked her over. She didn’t have so much as a burn. “Did you figure out a way to make yourself lava-proof?”

  “I did not,” she said. “Vicki can explain it faster than me maybe.”

  Vicki loves explaining things. “I am so sorry I could not tell you her plan,” they said. “I couldn’t risk revealing anything where the Prisoner could hear. Do you remember when Minna was forced to grow a new version of Polly on the space station, working from a sample of the creature’s flesh? And the way Polly encoded its consciousness into a sort of seed, so the Lector could transfer its mind and memories into the new body?”